Various computer programs for creating, editing, and exporting artwork are on the market today. Examples include ILLUSTRATOR® and PHOTOSHOP®, both from Adobe Systems Incorporated of San Jose, Calif., and PHOTOSTUDIO™, available from ArcSoft, Inc.
Crop operations are frequently performed by users of such products. Traditional cropping usually includes placing a rectangular cropping tool around a desired art object and then selecting a crop operation, which then deletes the area around the desired art object and allows the selected portion to be exported for another use. One such use for cropping is to create appropriately-sized art portions for one or more downstream formats (e.g., video, etc.). Thus, if a user wants to export art to a video editor, the user crops a portion that is shaped according to the dimensions of the video format.
A problem arises when a user desires to export the same art to a variety of different formats. Prior art graphics programs usually allow only one crop area per document. Thus, the user must save at least one document per output format and then crop each document separately to create the desired output in each format. Opening and closing multiple documents takes time, creates file clutter, and is inefficient. Further, the user must make edits to the different documents if the user desires to edit the art after the documents are created.
Another prior art system includes a polygonal selection tool and a crop tool that can work together with the selection tool. A user can select an arbitrary group of simple shapes like rectangles and ellipses and create a complex, often non-contiguous selection. Then the user activates the crop tool, and it cuts the area outside the selection. In one example, a system allows a user to create, add, and subtract areas from to the total selection area. There is no information kept of multiple crop areas. In fact, the multiple selections act as a single, complex crop area. This is further illustrated by the fact that when the user clicks over the selection and drags, it moves the whole selection.
Currently, there is no product available that allows a user to create multiple, independent crop areas in the same document. Moreover, there is no product currently available that allows a user to export the same piece of art multiple times from a single document.